


lovely in my sight

by be_themoon



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: Character Study, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-19
Updated: 2010-05-19
Packaged: 2017-10-09 14:24:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/88420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/be_themoon/pseuds/be_themoon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I had a sister lovely in my sight: / Her hair was dark, her eyes were very sombre; / We sang together in the woods at night." Susan, from LWW through The Last Battle. Things she refuses to remember.</p>
            </blockquote>





	lovely in my sight

Susan's crown is heavy on her head and her neck aches, but she glides across the floor with Peter in a fair semblance of poised and royal.

When she returns to her rooms, she dismisses the handmaidens that have mysteriously appeared and takes the crown off, rolling her head in relief. The crown glints in the moonlight, a promise and a threat, and she thinks what have we done?

In the morning, she stares at herself in the mirror and her face hardens in resolve.

"I can do this," she says to her reflection, and settles the crown firmly on her hair. "I will do this." By the end of the week, she no longer notices the weight.

+

She knows from the beginning that she will marry if Narnia needs it, not for love. She does not mind.

+

There are calluses on her hands, and she does not remember them forming.

"Not exactly queenly, I'm afraid," she tells Peter ruefully, in the morning over toast and marmalade and Calormene tea.

"Nonsense," Peter says, lifting her hand to kiss her knuckles. "Hard work is befitting for a queen." His eyes are proud, and she smiles.

+

The music of the Summer Festival beneath her feels like the heartbeat of Narnia, and she thinks, We have done it.

"Dance with me, Queen Susan?" Peter murmurs behind her, hands on her shoulders, and she lets him lead her down the stairs and whirls in the fire and starlight until she is dizzy and aching with laughter.

+

She skins her knees on the wood of the floor.

+

"Once a king or queen of Narnia," Lucy says softly for the twentieth time, and Susan's teacup crashes to the floor and shatters as she half-rises from her chair, face white.

"Stop it - stop it, it's not going to change anything!" she yells, and sinks sobbing to the floor, shards of china pressing into her legs. Peter crouches beside her and holds her and outside the rain falls monotonous and steady.

+

She finds London unbearably dreary, still caught in the same war and the same year, a sea of people dressed in grey and brown. Time drags by mostly, unless doors are slamming and mother is yelling at Peter, at Edmund, at Lucy, at her, as frightened and angry as they are and Susan remembers waiting when Peter rode to war.

She wants to break things and yell too, but she is a queen of Narnia, so she nods and smiles and soon it gets easier to fake.

+

"Walk like a king," she tells Peter.

+

At night she lies in bed and listens to the planes and Lucy's even breathing and wonders if they ruled Narnia for fifteen years only to come back to London, grey solemn London, and die because of a stupid war started by a stupid man.

+

She remembers - she remembers - she remembers, and breathes in time with the land.

+

"Everything feels upside down," Caspian says, and Susan smiles.

"It's magic," she says, remembering what it feels like to say that and actually mean it. "Narnia is remembering itself."

"I like it," Caspian says, a little drowsily, and his face is painted in the shades of the moon.

"Good," Susan says, and stands up. "This is your kingdom now."

"Will you - ?" Caspian begins, and Susan shakes her head.

"I need to be getting to bed," she murmurs, but hesitates for a moment. Caspian is so young and naive, so unsure of everything, and she knows the crown will be heavy on his head. "The crown gets lighter," she says, "but it never really gets easier." She's never been able to offer false comfort.

+

_This is my land_, she thinks, looking steadily at Aslan. _This is my country, this is our place. We defeated its enemies, we spilled our blood, we broke our bones, we made ourselves killers for this land, we would have given our lives had it been required, and we would not have come back to life. You left it. You sent us away and you abandoned it._

You have no right. You have no right.

But she doesn't say anything, even when she steps through the tree, because it is not her right anymore either, and she has always been good at accepting the things she cannot change.

+

In church, she looks at the stained glass windows instead of listening to the sermon.

"If you can transcend worlds, where were you in Charn?" she asks the smiling statue of Christ, his hands outstretched, to heal or bear burdens. He doesn't answer, and she leaves with a quiet feeling of defeat in her stomach and does not come back.

+

Edmund's hands are always cold these days, and Susan can see the quiet desperation in his eyes when it snows, when he flinches at sudden movements and words come slowly and quietly. There is nothing she can do.

+

At the train station, she identifies each of the bodies calmly, without tears or recriminations or fainting. This is not the first time she has seen her siblings crushed and broken. It is only the first time she has known there is no way to heal them.

+

"My family believed in miracles," she says to the crowd at the funeral, and sits down.

It has to be the shortest eulogy on record.


End file.
